Robert Burns Night
People in Scotland, and all around the world, will be cutting into a haggis today or lifting a wee dram to the memory of Robert Burns, our national poet. Like many Scottish libraries, St Andrews has many editions of…
Search by category: anniversaries
The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee 2022
Queen Elizabeth II is the first British Monarch to celebrate 70 years of service. Her reign is already longer than the reigns of her four predecessors put together. To mark the Platinum Jubilee weekend, we thought we…
570 years ago today …
“Kennedy’s college, dedicated to the Holy Saviour, was founded on the site which it has ever since occupied in North Street on 27 August 1450. On the same memorable day, the Bishop issued his charter of foundation,…
Philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and the University of St Andrews
This week we mark the centenary of the death of Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-American steel magnate and philanthropist, who gave away almost 90% of his fortune (almost $5 billion in 2019 value) between his retirement in…
The Tullis Russell Band Centenary, 1919-2019
As part of our occasional audio-visual blog series, this week we look at (and listen to!) the Tullis Russell brass band, which celebrates its 100th birthday this year and whose 1969 50th anniversary album is preserved…
300 years of ‘The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe’
Daniel Defoe’s castaway tale, The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, was first published 300 years ago on 25th April 1719, Defoe’s debut as a writer of fiction. The first edition did not carry…
John Ruskin and James David Forbes
Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of the Victorian art critic John Ruskin (8 February 1819-20 January 1900). Born in London, John Ruskin was the only son of John James Ruskin, a sherry importer and Margaret…
Daguerreotypes in the Library’s Special Collections
To start off the new year, our Photographic Collections Manager takes a look at the daguerreotypes in the Library’s photographic collections on the anniversary of Daguerre’s announcement to the world of his new…
Centenary of the Qualification of Women Act
Today is the 100th Anniversary of the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act, November 1918 which allowed women to stand as Members of Parliament. For more on the struggle for equal representation why not have a look…
Armistice and Remembrance,1918 to 2018: Part II
This Sunday, the 11th of November 2018, marks the 100th anniversary of the armistice which ended the First World War in Western Europe. In the first part of this post we looked at some of the celebrations and personal…